


Rumour Has It

by g33kyclassic



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Charles You Slut, Erik Has Feelings, Group projects are the devil, M/M, Protective Erik
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-14 20:16:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21021653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g33kyclassic/pseuds/g33kyclassic
Summary: Erik has just arrived to the US as a foreign exchange student for the year. It takes him less than two weeks to learn through the rumour mill that Charles Xavier is the biggest slut on campus. Thankfully, he has never had any trouble ignoring rumours.  Until he and Charles are paired up for a group project that is, and Erik finds himself suddenly in Charles social sphere.  Is Charles who everyone says he is?  Or is he something... more?





	1. Chapter 1

****

**Chapter 1**

Charles Xavier was the biggest slut on campus. Everybody knew it, everybody talked it about it behind his back, it was, without a doubt, the most open ‘secret’ on campus. Even Erik, an international student who had arrived on campus only two weeks ago at the start of the term, knew about Charles.

Though he honestly thought all the gossip reflected more on the gossipers (like his housemates and his neighbours and random people he passed in the halls) than the man at the center of the rumours.

“Listen man, if you want the best blow job of your life: go to the bathroom at a party and see if you can find Xavier. He hides in random bathrooms all the time. And what he can do with his mouth… I swear to god you’ll see stars!”

Erik stared blankly at Sean, a freshman with fiery red hair who seemed incapable of keeping his mouth shut, and said nothing.

“I’m serious man. He has a reputation for a reason.”

“And you know this from personal experience? How many blow jobs has this guy given you?” Erik asked, mostly to see how Sean would react and because it was ridiculous to imagine a freshman who’d been on campus for two weeks had ever even met Charles Xavier.

Face flushed, Sean stuttered out a response. “No! No, man – I’m totally not into guys.” Erik watched Sean shake his head aggressively and wondered if Sean had any sexual experience whatsoever. “But the things you hear about him… well, some guys don’t really care that he’s a guy one way or the other. I heard Shaw say ‘a mouth’s a mouth.’ And Xavier’s kind of… pretty, I guess.” Sean finished with a casual shrug, his face flushed.

“You’ve clearly thought about him… extensively.” Erik commented drily.

“Shit man, people talk! I’m not -” Sean stopped, eyes narrowing. “You’re shitting with me, aren’t you? This is what passes for teasing in Germany?”

Erik just grinned, which made Sean shudder.

“That’s fucking creepy man. How many teeth do you have in there?”

Erik rolled his eyes. “The regular number.”

“You have a class with him, right? Xavier?” Sean asked.

“He’s in my History of Mutant Regulation class.”

“So you’ve met him?”

“No.” Erik stood, ready for this inane conversation to end. “I have to go study.”

Erik trudged up the stairs, looking forward to the solitude of his own room.

“Is he pretty, Lehnsherr? Come on, at least tell me that! Do you think he’s pretty?” Sean called up after him.

Erik slammed his door in answer and flung his books onto his bed. He sat down beside them and exhaled a long slow breath, trying to control his mounting frustration by cataloguing every piece of metal in the room.

Why had the universe cursed him with a house full of idiotic housemates? Sean and Alex were both freshmen and barely seemed to share a brain cell between them. Hank was hardly older than a freshman, but he was already working on his doctorate. As smart as he was academically, his social skills were horrible – he was completely unable to speak to other people without stammering and flushing. He made Erik seem verbose, which was saying something, since Erik didn’t speak to people unless it was absolutely necessary, or if he wanted to argue with them for their stupid opinions about mutant rights.

At least his housemates were better than their neighbours, who lead by one Sebastian Shaw, were possibly the most obnoxious group of people Erik had ever had the misfortune to meet. If you wanted to hear detailed accounts of just what Charles Xavier could do with his mouth, Azazel was your man. If you wanted to hear about how humans were useless and about the ‘sexy squeals’ Xavier made while getting fucked, Shaw would tell you. If you wanted to meet a man who was put out because some people didn’t consider him the most beautiful man on campus, you just had to look at Janos’ face when someone was waxing poetical about Xavier’s blue eyes. Lastly, if you’d ever wanted to meet someone who was 100% likely to stab you in the back to get ahead, well Emma Frost was the woman for you. 

Erik avoided his neighbours like the plague. Unfortunately, Sebastian had somehow found out he was a mutant and had been doing his best these past two weeks to convince Erik to join his terrorist group - sorry, his “Mutant Supremacy” group.

Curt refusals had failed, so the last time Shaw had approached him outside his Mutant Regulation class, Erik had firmly told him to ‘Fuck off’ and stomped away. Shaw now glared daggers at him whenever they saw each other on campus, not that Erik cared.

Erik sighed and pick up his textbook on Mutant Legislation. Sean’s question was still bouncing around in his head, but he refused to let it keep him distracted. ‘Was Xavier pretty?’, really? There was no way in hell Erik was going to spend any effort thinking about that and he certainly wasn’t going to go looking so he could answer Sean’s question. No possible way.

* * *

Erik sat in his seat and groaned. He could not believe that Professor Garcia was going torture them this way. Group work. How could he do this? Erik had actually been enjoying this class until two minutes ago. Professor Garcia wasn’t a mutant, but he was married to one and had a mutant child, so he was very much aware of the struggles of mutants in society and was relatively sensitive in how he approached the topics covered in class. He also openly encouraged debate, which made class lively and far more interesting than it would have been in a traditional lecture format. But this, this was cruel.

“I am assigning everyone a random partner. And yes, before you all jump down my throat, the selections were totally random, I used a computer program. Your pairings are final. You will not change partners, I don’t care how much to plead with me about it. You will work on this assignment – together – for the rest of the year. It accounts for thirty percent of your grade, so this is not to be taken lightly. The list of pairings is right here -” Professor Garcia held up one sheet of paper, “and I will post it up front at the end of this class. Now, let’s talk about the Identification Act of 1985...”

Erik spent the rest of the class half listening to the professor and half absorbed in glancing around to look at all his classmates to try and figure out who would be the worst person to be paired up with. There were half a dozen humans in the class who had signed up just to give speeches about how dangerous mutants were and how identification and separation was “essential for national security”. Erik wasn’t sure he could work on an assignment with one of them without it leading to a punch in the face. Otherwise, Erik figured one classmate was pretty much the same as any other. Regardless of who he was paired with, Erik refused to let this stupid group project bring down his grade point average.

The class ended with a rush of students clamoring to the front of the class to get a look at the list of student pairings. Erik sat at his spot and slowly loaded his notes into his backpack. There wasn’t any reason to rush – the list would still be there in five minutes when the crowd cleared, or his partner would find him before he even had to get up and look.

With his head bent over zipping up his bag, the first thing Erik heard was someone clearing their throat.

“Hello. I believe we’re partners.” Said a crisp British voice.

Erik leaned back slowly, something like dread curling in his stomach. He looked up at the man in front of him and found himself looking into the impossibly blue eyes of one Charles Xavier.

“You are Erik Lehnsherr, yes?”

“Yeah.” Erik spoke, determined to react normally – surely it couldn’t that bad to have been paired up with the most promiscuous man on campus. “That’s me.”

“I’m Charles, Charles Xavier.”

Charles held out his hand and Erik found himself reaching out, and having his hand grasped in a surprisingly firm grip.

“I think it best if we meet to talk about the assignment as soon as possible.” Charles continued. “I have to admit my schedule is quite full and it may be difficult for me to arrange time to meet with you if we don’t plan ahead.”

Erik bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from making some sort of snarky comment about Charles ‘schedule’, which the majority of the university seemed to think involved enough sex for about three healthy young men, and instead nodded in agreement.

“I don’t have class until later this afternoon. We could go to the library now and sort something out, maybe pick our first topic from the list Garcia gave out?” Erik suggested.

“Excellent. I have about an hour before my next commitment.”

Erik found himself walking about a step behind Charles as they exited the classroom. Xavier was a startling fast walker and even though Erik had a good five inches on him at least, he found he had to consciously keep himself from falling behind the shorter man.

He was so focused on lengthening his stride to keep up with Charles, he almost ran right into him when the other man stopped abruptly only a few meters outside the humanities building.

“Found a new fuck, have we Charlie?” Sebastian Shaw’s voice dripped with contempt.

“If you’ll excuse us Sebastian, we were headed to the library.” Charles said blandly, head held high.

“You know he’ll have sex with anything that breathes, right Lehnsherr? If you want to join his pussy footed little Mutant Human Alliance, you don’t have to sleep with him, even though everyone knows he’s slept with the entire group.”

Erik glared at Sebastian but said nothing – there was nothing to say to his baseless accusations.

“Fine.” Sebastian shrugged. “Just wrap it up – who’s know what diseases Charlie has by now.”

Sebastian cackled as he walked away, waving his fingers in a jaunty fashion as if he was saying goodbye to a couple friends, not two people he’d just insulted.

Charles didn’t spare a second to look back at Sebastian, he simply soldiered on and Erik followed him in silence until they found an empty study room at the library.

“Does he do that a lot?” Erik asked.

“Hmm, what?” Charles frowned, apparently confused by Erik’s question.

“Shaw – does he go around saying shit about you all the time?”

“Oh, that.” Charles waved a hand dismissively. “Sebastian doesn’t like the fact that I run a Mutant Human Alliance – it clashes far too much with his ‘Brotherhood’ and their belief in mutant superiority. He likes to try to get back at me with petty insults.”

“He’s an asshole.” Erik grumbled. “And his ‘Brotherhood’ is practically a terrorist organization – their blog has a list of all the human politician’s they’d like to ‘eliminate’.”

“I’m aware.” Charles sighed. “I feel the less attention I give Sebastian and his efforts, the better. Now, the assignment – was there a particular piece of legislation you wanted to look into first?”

Erik let his desire to dig into Sebastian’s insults about Charles’ sex life drop. It wasn’t really any of his business.

Working with Charles was nothing like Erik had thought it might be. Charles did not flirt – he didn’t so much as bat his eyelashes. He was completely professional and focused the entire hour they’d spent in the library. 

It only took about five minutes for it to become clear that Charles was incredibly intelligent and well versed in mutant legislation. He also wasn’t afraid to voice his opinions, or disagree with Erik. They had both agreed they wanted to pick the broad topic of ‘Mutant Identification and Suppression in the Education System’, but had spent a good fifteen minutes arguing over which specific piece of legislation to analyze first.

Erik had been impressed. A lot of people, well most people actually, backed down in the face of Erik’s tirades, but not Charles. In fact, he hadn’t missed a beat – he was ready with a calm rebuttal to every argument Erik offered. Erik had finally, after much back and forth with Charles, compromised by agreeing to start with Charles’ top choice (the Dangerous Mutant Identification Act of 1999), but only after Charles explicitly agreed to end with Erik’s top choice (the Mutant Segregation Bill of 1961).

The meeting had ended with a quick check of their schedules and a plan to meet every Tuesday for a brief face to face chat after class and to have a longer collaborative work session every Saturday morning.

Erik walked home feeling unexpectedly happy about the whole thing. It seemed that working with Charles was going to be fine, even if he was nothing at all like Erik had expected.

One might think a man described as the biggest slut on campus would look a certain way. Sean had asked if Xavier was pretty and… he was so much more than that, and yet also, strangely less. Today, he’d been wearing an oversized knit sweater, the type you might see a fisherman wear to keep out the cold, paired with rather ill-fitting corduroy pants. The entire ensemble did absolutely nothing to highlight Charles’ body; clearly he had a body somewhere under all that fabric, but Erik couldn’t have told you if he was thin, muscular, pudgy, or somewhere in between. Despite his complete lack of fashion sense, Xavier’s face more than made up for his clothing choices. His face… his face was achingly handsome. It wasn’t quite pretty, not with its slightly too large nose and the freckles, but it was somehow better because of its flaws.

No, Charles Xavier wasn’t pretty. But damn if Erik was going to tell Sean that Charles’ eyes practically glowed when he was talking about something that got him excited, or that his lips looked just as impossibly red up close as they did from across the room, or that he cheeks flushed an enchanting shade of pink when Erik had teased him about how many books he’d had stuff in his book bag. Erik wasn’t going to share any of that with Sean. Sean’s head would probably explode from excitement from the knowledge that Erik had been within five feet of the infamous Charles Xavier.

No, Erik thought, he’d just keep his newfound knowledge of Charles to himself. No need to add fuel to the already raging inferno that was the Charles Xavier rumour mill. How difficult could it possibly be to keep one little secret from his freshmen roommate?


	2. Chapter 2

****

** Chapter 2 **

* * *

Sean was waiting inside the front door to pounce on him as soon as he got through the door.

“Spill Lehnsherr!” Sean yelled excitedly. “What was he like? Did you… you know” Sean raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Erik grumbled.

“I’m talking about you and Xavier, man! The whole campus is talking about how you two were partnered up for a project. Let me tell you, some people are pretty jealous – they wish they had a partner who gives out blow jobs like candy on Halloween.” Sean smirked.

“For fucks sake.” Erik muttered, running his hand through his hair. “Does everyone know about this already?”

“Yeah, man. Everybody knows.” Sean nodded vigorously. “So… spill man! What was it like sexing it up with Xavier? I hear you got him all alone in the library?”

“We were working on our project.” Erik almost yelled, arms waving. “I did not sex him up. He did not sex me up. There was no sex of any kind!”

“Sure, man, sure.” Sean agreed, still smiling.

“Listen here you little shit,” Erik reached out, grabbing at Sean’s shirt in a flash of movement and puling him forward, “we did not have sex. I don’t care what people say about Xavier, alright? He was perfectly normal. All we did was work on our class assignment. And if I hear you or anyone else say otherwise, I will punch you so hard in the face you’ll need dental surgery. Are we clear?”

“Yeah, yeah! We’re clear!” Sean scrambled, holding his hands up in a gesture of innocence. “He was normal. You’re batshit crazy. We’re all good.”

“You will not say anything.” Erik repeated.

“I won’t say anything.” Sean put a hand on his chest. “Promise.”

Erik let go of Sean’s shirt and took a step back. “Good. That’s good.”

“You need to learn how to relax dude.” Sean instructed, wiping a hand down his shirt.

“You shouldn’t go around repeating every piece of gossip you hear.” Erik admonished. “At least half of it is complete bullshit.”

“Sure, man. That’s… probably true.” Sean admitted.

“I gotta go study.” Erik turned and climbed the stairs two at a time.

“Hey!” Sean called after him. “You can at least tell me if he’s pretty, right Lehnsherr?”

“Fuck off.” Erik yelled, not bothering to look back.

“Ha!” Sean shouted at Erik’s retreating form. “He must be fucking gorgeous!”

Erik pursed his lips and didn’t answer, other than to slam his door shut as loudly as possible.

* * *

“You cannot possibly be arguing in favour of the Dangerous Mutant Act! It is clearly discriminatory – actually its more than that, it was racist! And it lead to some mutants receiving little to no education at all!” Erik raged as he paced across the kitchen of Charles’ apartment.

“Of course I’m not in favour of the Act.” Charles replied as calm as ever. “But the assignment asks us to consider both sides of the equation and clearly the Act had enough support to get through the Senate, so it had support. Not my personal support, Erik, but support of the wider population.”

“How can you speaks so calmly about legislation that oppressed mutants? That hurt our people for years?” Erik asked pointedly.

“This particular piece of legislation was overturned very quickly – thankfully. Due to excellent lobbying on the part of Mutant Equality groups.” Charles argued back. “I suppose I simply prefer to focus on their efforts, as opposed to the underlying fear of the unknown that has lead to the creation of so many of these restrictive policies.” Charles sighed. “You’re right, my friend. The Act was horrible. It was unjust. It lead to a ten percent decrease in mutant enrollment in schools – regardless of the level of education being provided. There is very little in the way of positives to be found.”

“But you’re trying.” Erik sat back down and gave Charles a tentative smile.

“I am.” Charles nodded. “For the sake of our grade of course.”

“Of course.” Erik grinned.

Erik looked back down at his notes, only to be interrupted by a loud banging at the door.

“Apologies,” Charles murmured as he got up out of his seat, “I’d best see who’s at the door.”

Erik tried not to listen (it was impossible the man at the door was practically shouting), he tried not the look (also impossible since Charles walked right into the kitchen), but Charles hauling what appeared to be a very drunk man, built like an American football player, was hard to miss.

“I thought we talked about this.” Charles was saying. “No more alcohol.”

“It was the party… the last party. Had to man. Had to. Those guys think I’m a pussy if I don’t..._hick_...don’t drink.” The man explained disjointedly.

“The perils of peer pressure.” 

Charles flashed Erik a quick apologetic smile and mouthed ‘Sorry’ as he left the room, his bulky guest in tow.

“Yeah man.” The drunken idiot affirmed loudly. “I need you Charles. You always make me feel so much better.”

Erik had never been so relieved to here a door slam shut in his life. Unfortunately he could still hear some things. Like groans and a loud exclamation of ‘god you’re good’ and what sounded suspiciously like the creaking of a bed frame.

Erik found himself leaning over his arms on the table, eyes closed, cataloguing every piece of metal cutlery in Charles’ kitchen drawers using his powers. It was distracting and calming and helped Erik definitely not think about what Charles and his unexpected guest were doing in his room.

He wasn’t exactly sure how long he waited. Long enough to move on from cataloguing cutlery, to counting pots and pans, but eventually Charles and his guest emerged from the bedroom and walked back through the kitchen. Charles’ guest seemed much improved – walking on his own two feet, not a stagger to be seen. Charles looked a bit pale, but otherwise no different than he had earlier. His button down shirt was still buttoned all the way up and covered by an also fully buttoned cardigan, all tucked into neatly pressed slacks. Erik had taken one look at him this morning and thought he would have been an excellent substitute for Mr. Rogers. 

Erik knew he shouldn’t be rude and stare, but he couldn’t help but watch as Charles lead the man back to the front door.

“Hey, thanks Chuck.” The man said, placing a hand on Charles’ shoulder. “You really are the best.”

“Remember what we spoke about. You have the ability to resist temptation my friend.” Charles responded.

“Yeah, yeah sure.” The man shook his head and stepped back. “See you ‘round Chuck.”

Charles closed the door, made his way back to the table and sat down across from Erik.

Erik was grateful that Charles started talking about the assignment right away. He let Charles direct the conversation for the next hour and thanks to Charles’ focus and drive they made excellent progress. Erik was packing up his things to leave, finally feeling like he might be able to erase the whole ‘Charles having sex with some random football player’ incident from his mind forever, when Charles spoke up.

“I want to apologize for earlier.” Charles said sincerely.

Erik stood still and silent, unable to find words to say in response.

“It was unaccountably rude of me to have such an interruption to our work and I want to assure you it won’t happen again.” Charles declared. “My mutation… my mutation allows me to… help people and sometimes, some people take advantage of that more often then they should.”

“You could just say no.” Erik managed to get out through clenched teeth.

The mere thought that Charles felt he had to sleep with people because he was somehow ‘helping’ them was infuriating. And what kind of mutation did he have anyway?

“You’re right of course.” Charles nodded. “And I do. I will. I will make it clear that my services are not available at all during our study times. I promise my friend.”

Charles was smiling, but Erin couldn’t bring himself to return it. His stomach was churning in discomfort and he felt, unaccountably like he might throw up.

He managed to make his way through a normal set of goodbyes with Charles. He was almost sure he was acting like a normal person through it all - Charles certainly didn’t say otherwise.

However, as soon as he was out the door and walking back to his house, his mind focused in on the problem at hand. In was unacceptable that someone like Charles, someone so intelligent, so idealistic, so kind, should be taken advantage of by half the campus who seemed to think they could drop by his apartment for sexual favours whenever they wanted. Erik wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was going with Charles and his sexual escapades, but he was now bound and determined to find out.

Operation ‘Protect Charles Xavier from himself’ had officially begun.

**Author's Note:**

> This started a a ficlet series on tumblr and I am planning to continue it there. But I will move things over here as I go until the story is complete.
> 
> This is completely un-beta'd, so I apologize for all mistakes. They're all on me.
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
